5 k thread fall 09 results version

[Chucktown PE]

Afternoon folks.
Chucktown is back from Christmas in one piece. Went to my parents Christmas day, their place was flooded and it took us a while to get there, then traffic on the way home last night was awful.

I took the morning off to help my wife unpack/put away stuff and put toys together for the kids. Thanks to the MIL for buying the Playmobil Pirate Ship, damn thing must have had 300 pieces in it, 280 of which had to be assembled. 2 hours in to it my son lost interest. My 2 year old daughter received 5 baby dolls for Christmas, by doll number 4 I could almost see the disappointment in her eyes. I think we're going to donate at least 2 of them to foster kids.

bah humbug!

Sadly, I've felt scroogish for about 10 days now. I really hate the materialism of the holiday, I wish it were more like Thanksgiving, i.e. it's focussed more on the meaning of the actual holiday than giving presents. I think we've all been duped/marketed by corporate America to believe that we're grinches/scrooges if we don't kill ourselves to find perfect gifts for Christmas and spend a bunch of money in the process. Between the wife and I arguing, the stress of purchasing presents, and the fact that I barely even thought about the meaning of the holiday, I'm kind of glad it's over. I guess I need to fix those things next year. Don't get me wrong, it was fun watching the kids come downstairs Christmas morning, but man it takes a lot of work/stress to get to that point.

 

[Road Guy]

same thing happens to us, we have done away with most of the inter-family gifts, but we get stuff for bro-in laws kids, and our parents, but for some reason it ends up being a big fuss about mid December.

We dont do christmas at anyones house anymore, and we dont want, expect anyone to spend the night at ours, we try and get together the weekend before, that has made the last two christmas's much better.

Christmas eve tends to be fairly hectic, bringing the toys up from the basement, making sure kids are zonked out, you realized a few presents need to be wrapped, then you finally get to bed and realize you forgot to do stockings!

but I have to say when you hear the 6 year old screaming for everyone to get up on christmas morning it does make it all a little better.

Since I have a 10 year old (an 8 year old and a 6 year old) and i doubt the 10 year old beleives in "santa" anymore I have tried to realize that I probably only have 3 maybe 4 christmas's left with kids who still beleive that jive, so I am going to try and enjoy them, I dont think it will be near as fun watching teenagers open gifts as it is little kids.

 

[Dleg]

^No kidding. I think my daughter was 9 when she told me that she knew all about Santa because her classmates told her, and Santa didn't make sense anyway. She's always been overly mature for her age, so it kind of sucks. My son, on the other hand, is only 6 and he really believes it, and it was very enjoyable for me to watch him this year. I hope I get another 3 or 4 Christmases before he figures it out.

Little kids are the greatest.

 

[cement]

the holidays are awesome.

 

[maryannette]

Big kids are good, too. Now that my daughters are older, we don't get stressed about hiding santa presents and we can get a full night of sleep. We don't put as much into gifts and acknowledge that we all have everything we need and most of what we want. We really spend more time focusing on family. It's good.

 

[csb]

This was my son's first Christmas believing in Santa...last year he told us Jesus brought the presents.

Downside to this year is that Santa REALLY freaked him out. Christmas Eve he told me he didn't need any presents, because he didn't want some random dude in the house.

 

[cement]

he's going to be a handfull!

 

[csb]

I thought of the long locked thread on babies on airplanes when I saw this:

PALM BEACH, Fla. - Police say Ivana Trump has been escorted off a plane in Florida after she became belligerent when children were running and screaming in the aisles.

Authorities say the first ex-wife of billionaire Donald Trump cursed at the children Saturday, and when flight attendants on the New York-bound plane tried to calm her, she became even more aggravated.

Her spokeswoman, Catherine Saxton, did not immediately return a telephone message. Trump filed for divorce from her fourth husband earlier this month.

She has not been charged in the incident at Palm Beach International Airport.

Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies asked Trump to voluntarily exit the plane, but they said she refused. She was then escorted off.

 

[Dleg]

What a bitch.

 

[maryannette]

yup

 

[Dleg]

Quiet in here today...

I saw a super depressing movie last night - one of the new DVDs I bought my daughter to round out her collection of Anime films from "Studio Ghibli" - the Japanese animators that supposedly serve as inspiration to the Disney guys.

We watched "Grave of the Fireflies" last night and it is definitely NOT a feel-good, Disney-type film. It's one of the most powerful anti-war movies I have ever seen.

 

[EM_PS]

^No kidding. I think my daughter was 9 when she told me that she knew all about Santa because her classmates told her, and Santa didn't make sense anyway. She's always been overly mature for her age, so it kind of sucks. My son, on the other hand, is only 6 and he really believes it, and it was very enjoyable for me to watch him this year. I hope I get another 3 or 4 Christmases before he figures it out.
Little kids are the greatest.

With a 5 & 3-1/2 yo, the Santa belief is in full effect. We have two fireplaces in our house, one in living room, one in basement, where the kids & their stuff / toys usually are. I totally got them to clean that basement room spic & span when i mentioned we're not really sure which chimney Santa's gonna come down...and what if he comes out the basement fireplace and sees all these toys laying around. He might decide y'all won't need anymore and just leave instead. Instant spotless basement!!! Should have a good run of years of using that before they catch on.

 

[Dleg]

I figured out the Santa thing by finding my presents hidden in my parent's room before Christmas one year. I think I was in 3rd grade, and had already heard rumors from friends. However, I pretended not to know and never let on that I did know. Not once. I enjoyed the Santa game so much, and I had a feeling my parents did, too, that I decided not to say anything even though we all knew I knew. I discussed it with my little sister once when she brought it up, and we both agreed to keep it up. Good times....

The lesson: kids are nosy and will sneak around and look into every drawer and under every bed in the house eventually. I'm very careful to hide the presents now. Fortunately I have a ton of stereo component boxes in one closet, and a bunch of luggage in another that I can hide the presents in. I feel confident that my son won't find them in there, for a few more years. I can't say that for my daughter, but she's already outed that she "knows" so it's no big deal.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I need a vacation from my vacation. Good thing I have a 3 day weekend coming up with absolutely nothing planned.

 

[ElCid03]

^That sounds like a good vacation!

 

[maryannette]

I'm tired and I have to finish paying bills before I go to bed.

Hmmmmm. What am I doing wasting time here?

Good night.

 

[Flyer_PE]

Due to our invoicing schedule, I had to forecast the hours for this week, last week. I only put myself down for 16 hours of actual work this week so the goof-off factor is pretty high. I'm pretty much a push-over this week to the "Daddy, will you help me build something?" ploy my son uses to get me out of the office.

 

[Dleg]

I spent a lot of time building stuff for my son this weekend, and helping him play with his new toys.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

and helping him play with his new toys.

It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you *want* to play with his new toys, does it?

 

[Dleg]

Absolutely!

Actually, I was pretty impressed yesterday - he had created what I thought was a big mess on the floor, but after he got upset at me for trying to move stuff, and after some questioning, I learned that what he had created was a little diorama of a scene from Terminator:Salvation using legos and lego people.

There was the "good terminator" (Marcus) hiding behind a wrecked LEgo truck, and there were multiple dead lego people scattered around, with spears and swords through their abdomen. One had his head missing and a bunch of red lego Indiana Jones snakes coming out of its neck - he said it was "blood". And above the whole scene, on the edge of the coffee table, was the sentry terminator turret-bot.